November 1, 2024
Bought in a preempt, this memoir from the creator of @PoetsSquareCats on TikTok and Instagram shares Gustafson's story of unexpectedly finding 30 feral cats at her new rental house. Despite all the challenges in her life, she couldn't resist taking care of them, leading to unexpected insights and viral posts. Prepub Alert.
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March 1, 2025
A cat lover's chronicle. Cat rescuer Gustafson makes her book debut with a warm memoir about loneliness, love, and her unexpected connection to feral cats in the Tucson neighborhood of Poets Square, where she moved with her boyfriend during the Covid-19 pandemic. At times, tending to 30 howling, mewling, starving cats felt overwhelming: "I was spending a lot of time crying, a lot of time feeling like my heart was too small and too tender, a lot of time wishing I could disengage, wishing I had not been the one to find these cats." Besides feeding them, she took them to be neutered to prevent litters of kittens added to the population--not only around her house, but in other neighborhoods, too. She became known as the cat lady, the person others turned to when they found injured cats, or just too many. Without quite knowing why, she posted adorable photos of the cats on social media; surprising to her, the Instagram site attracted followers and contributions. When she filmed a video about cooking a miniature Thanksgiving dinner for stray cats, the TikTok post went viral. Rescuing cats and working at a food bank, Gustafson discovered that the experiences of being unhoused, friendless, and hungry were not limited to cats. Just as the felines outside her house fought for the food she put out for them, the people waiting hours for food distribution often lashed out in anger at not being able to afford "the most basic of resources" to keep themselves and their families alive. While her cat rescue work has given her "a community, a sense of rootedness" and purpose, it has also given her "an intimate knowledge of suffering, a witnessing," she writes, "I never meant to inherit." Affecting testimony to the need for caring.
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Starred review from April 1, 2025
Sad Boy and Lola, Monkey, and Mr. Bigbutt are just a few of the feral cats featured on Gustafson's social media pages, @poetsquarecats. Gustafson had no idea that after moving into her new home in Tucson's Poets Square neighborhood, the 30 feral cats living on and around the property would change the trajectory of her life and career. After months of haphazardly tossing kibble at the wayward ferals and lamenting over how best to care for them on her meager nonprofit salary, Gustafson took some chances, learning about TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) efforts and feral cat care just as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. In alternating story lines--one often connected to a specific cat and the other to Gustafson's life experiences--she shares her battles with mental health, chronic illness, and quarter-life crisis. As she contemplates her life and internet virality, Gustafson grapples with perception by the online masses, the significant and empowering love of an animal, misogyny in rescue work, the financial strain of pet ownership, the ache of animal loss, and most importantly, how to develop a community. Her riveting and emotional vignettes are loaded with humanity and all the important lessons we can learn from little creatures just trying to survive.
COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.